U.S. SEC begins prepping for around-the-clock trading that crypto treats as the norm

D.C. — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is delving into its plans to bring its traditional systems into the kind of 24-hour, everyday timeline native to the crypto sector, hosting a Thursday roundtable at its Washington headquarters just an hour after the agency issued its order to approve tokenized securities trading

“We’re moving of course to a new day — and night,” Paul Atkins told the crowd of securities lawyers, saying that tradeable events aren’t constrained to market hours and expanding will mean “investors will be able to react more quickly to events.”

Amid the discussion on expanding hours for traditional firms, the SEC chairman also raised the agency’s new move on tokenization. The regulator ordered a new type of exemption be available to firms wanting to open tokenized securities trading, granting a five-year period in which the firms won’t have to worry about the overhang of heavy securities regulation.

“I believe that tokenization holds the potential to help the securities industry achieve a real-time inventory management, which could drive efficiency, reduce settlement failures, mitigate the risk of abusive naked short selling, with the goal of eliminating that possibility altogether,” Atkins said. “Therefore, I’ve asked the staff to consider what steps can be taken to dovetail a growth-friendly environment with protections against harmful market behavior.”

Moving the U.S. securities markets beyond their weekday, daytime tradition will involve significant adjustments, Atkins and other SEC commissioners admitted, though Commissioner Hester Peirce noted, “Crypto markets certainly don’t sleep.”

Peirce said that firms may be concerned that expanding their trading hours may contribute to wider spreads, increased volatility of prices, less time to deal with technology issues and making sure the transactions are properly monitored.

“These concerns are the real consequences of extending trading into hours when human involvement is limited,” Peirce said, adding that companies may also be worried about overnight drama such as “social media rumors tanking your stock while your corporate office slumbers.”

But the SEC is steaming toward the expansion, and Atkins said that “several needed preparations are already underway or in place.”

Source: cryptonews.net